I want to thank BA for all those nice moments and good service that they gave me (and others) on the route LHR-CCS-BOG and also LGW-CCS-BOG
The trips on your B747’s B777’and B767’s were excellent.
Hope to see you come back again in the future!

Today will be their last flight to the north of South America.

I’m still very sad that this happened… the last time that I felt the same was when AV dropped their BOG-LHR route.

Still no many photos in the database from BA in BOG and CCS.
Here are some of mine and others to share with you! Hope that some of our Colombian friends are able to take some nice photos of the last flight.

Is BA slowly withdrawing from the Latin American destinations, leaving them to Iberia hubbing in MAD or American hubbing in Miami ? With Iberia having a mediocre product and the AA-BA alliance disfunctional I would guess BA would try to fly own metal to all destinations where they can fill at least a 767... I guess this has been discussed but can't find anything.

Pity that they're withdrawing from those markets. I suppose the yields were either terrible, or simply not high enough to justify the opportunity costs of using the aircraft on those routes. A friend of mine has often flown to Caracas on BA; she didn't know that you could turn right when boarding the plane, so let's hope that the alternatives offer a decent amount of comfort!

"The education of a man is never completed until he dies." - Gen. R.E. Lee

Is BA slowly withdrawing from the Latin American destinations, leaving them to Iberia hubbing in MAD or American hubbing in Miami ?

There is no official strategy from BA, nor press releases or anything, regarding their route plans for South America.

BA has dropped most of its destinations in South America in the last years (not that they had a lot in the past), the only two routes currently served in the region being LHR-CCS-BOG and LHR-GRU-EZE/GIG.

Caracas-Bogotá, as this thread of course mentions, has been dropped without comments from BA. They just announced they were discontinuing the service. I have heard that the loads and yields on that route were good, but that was before the Venezuelan crisis. Nevertheless Venezuela is currently recovering, and one would think that if they flew during the worst times, they would continue flying now. Sadly no, British Airways said goodbye to Colombia and Venezuela, letting partner Iberia to fly alone that route.

I believe that perhaps Bogotá alone would have been successful, but BOG's location (very high above the sea level) makes it impossible for a fully-loaded aircraft to get there from London. Bogotá isn't getting lots of services from Europe right now, just Iberia, Air France and Air Madrid. Also Avianca flies to MAD with its own metal. I think that's about it, but I'll let any of our Colombian friends to complete/correct the list.

Caracas is another story, since they get flights of Alitalia, Air France, Lufthansa, Iberia and TAP. Santa Bárbara also flies to Madrid and to Tenerife, plus Conviasa will fly all over the world from both Caracas and Porlamar (wishful thinking). Again, Venezuelan amigos please correct me if I'm wrong. I personally believe Caracas isn't saturated but it gets exactly what it needs, since the city itself is not that big and the Venezuelan crisis, Chávez pseudo-dictature and the ban on using Venezuelan credit cards abroad (which has now been lifted, I think) currently don't make the city appealing for foreign investors. On the other side, more Latin American airlines are starting flights to or resuming CCS, but that's another story.

As for the other BA route in South America, LHR-GRU-EZE/GIG (3x weekly to GIG and 4x to EZE) it's been doing quite well lately, and it was upgraded from a 772 to 744 for the (southern) summer season. Nevertheless there are some rumours regarding the elimination of the last two legs (GRU-EZE/GIG), and letting them again to partner Iberia via Madrid. But those are still, and thankfully, only rumours.

Bogotá es high but it could allow flying to LHR directly. Avianca tried it with 762 and it worked, they retired but technically it's quite possible to fly BOGLHR directly with good loads. Now, the 763 has a lower range than the 762.

I gladly accept donations to pay for flight hours! This thing draws man...

I remember the first time I flew on an International flight (CCS-AMS) we had arrived from our noon flight from PZO and KLMs counter didn't open untill 5PM so we went upstairs for some Burger King, as my dad was filling out some immigration papers I sat on the terrace and saw something that really got my attention.......as I got close to the edge and leaned over this is what I saw:

If we want to here the rumours of BA leaving Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo would be all that's left.
If I do the right math, the only direct link between London and South America would be BA/RG to Sao Paulo, right? Is this a sign of our continent not having strong enough links with the UK? weird indeed, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Frankfurt and Amsterdam will have more contact. London will stay almost at the "level" of Brussels or Lisbon.

It would be nice if this turns to be the chance for another Southamerican carrier to adventure british skies!

There is no official strategy from BA, nor press releases or anything, regarding their route plans for South America.

True. However, a simple inspection of BA's worldwide network, and a consequent comparison with what they currently have left in terms of presence, specifically, in South America, will tell that BA has long been focusing towards a big-time yield extraction, tightly related with premium product offer/demand, in markets that have simply proven better.

I have heard that the loads and yields on that route were good

A thousand and one comments about the route performance were made, most of them pointing out that loads were good, but yields pretty much weak, specially passenger-wise. Many day-by-day conversations [based on personal expierences mostly] gave credits to Bogota as the responsible for most of the route's traffic. Nothing official, yet I tend to strongly believe in both cases, specially the one noting mediocre yield performance, which can easily explain why they're leaving.

I believe that perhaps Bogotá alone would have been successful

Maybe Marcos, but there's more to it...

BA offered a thrice weekly service, when most European airlines flying to either Bogota or Caracas provide a daily service, or at least, a much more frequent operation. I know, this aspect would have further hurt the route performance if the dominant traffic was business instead of leisure, but still, for starters they're in a clear disadvantage.

BA, unlike AF [which is the second strongest player in the region] has a rather unflexible fleet to meet the conditions given by different markets/destinations. They are keen in filling the premium classes, and let's face it, for a significant amount of passengers generated both in my country and in Venezuela, premium-economy is enough of a product in order to satisfy their expectations of luxury-class. Needless to say that Club World, much less First, were products that were simply not going to be popular, especially in Bogotá.

Even if Bogota was performing acceptably, this fact was strongly clouded by Caracas' conditions. If I'm not mistaken they had a F/A base in Caracas and rotated crews there, not in Bogota, and this, added to Bogota's hot-and-[very]high conditions versus BA's fleet status, made the stop in Caracas more vital even if they didn't want to.

Add to all this, the clear inconvinience in BA's scheduled, they offered extremely late departure from Caracas around midnight, and a lousy afternoon arrival to Heathrow; while the other European majors depart Caracas [and Bogota] around the late afternoon allowing an early arrival to their hubs. All this scene became even more obsolete knowing Heathrow's geographical position for connections against Paris or Madrid.

And as if it weren't enough, they never got the 5th freedom rights between Caracas and Bogota.

Believe me, it's sad to see BA leaving from Colombia, and Venezuela at that, but it isn't one bit surprising when looking to it thoroughly, and 757MDE can give credit to that [and our MSN conversations about the topic]

What's left of BA Latin America routes? MEX, GRU, GIG, EZE. Anything else? If you compare what we get with their African and Asian routes we are kind of behind. Granted, we don't have neither the economic appeal of Asia nor the colonial links of Africa, but we deserve better from the national carrier of the United Kingdom. Just my two cents.

According to an internal staff newsletter, both CCS and BOG did not contribute sufficient profit in order to justify the expenses of the operation (including crew bases in either CCS or BOG, I can't remember where they were located).

It's a real shame I know, but you have to understand that the company, although having just announced a modest profit for the 3rd financial quarter (£75m) is going through some tough times. There is quite a large debt to service (about £3 billion, one of the highest firgures in Europe) our employee costs are one of the highest in Europe (bar SAS), and the airline is still having problems trying to generate decent profits in its European ops. Not easy tasks.

The days when the airline might have given stations such as CCS or BOG more time to make a decent contribution are gone I'm afraid. The management have become a lot more strict with regards to the network, and given our strong relationship with Iberia, the reasons for remaining strong in Latin America are not necessarily economic! The truth is that the airline wants to focus on lucrative routes/regions around the network.

Unfortunately, apart from GRU (and perhaps EZE, sometimes), Latin America is not very attractive, in this economic sense. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the UK does not compete in trade terms with France and Spain, for instance. Leisure passengers are fine, but the main profit centre for BA is Club World (First only just makes a profit). If BA can't fill CW, then management will not look favourably on that particular route. The airline can't afford to fly everywhere anymore (a shame, but this is a business!)

Now I hope we don't go cancelling EZE....a shame the BA crew no longer stay there (they just operate the return shuttle from GRU).

You may be interested in reading the history of the CCS/BOG route; the story was published in last week's internal staff paper; I can email it to anyone interested.

Doors to Manual BA's debt is down to just under £3.2 billion now, but as the company has managed to reduce it by nearly £1 billion last year, and by £3.4 billion since December 2001, that's an achievement. Shame to see BA dropping routes it has operated for a long time, especially with RYD and JED going too. At the same time though can hopefully expect to see BA in PVG later this year, as well as BLR, and an expanded presence in MAA. So not all doom and gloom from BA.

Be interested in a copy of that article if you'd care to e-mail it DoorstoManual.

It is sad that BA was pulling out from this route. I can remember using the service 1991 with my family with an old BA 747-100 (LHR-CCS-BOG) and back. These days the service was not really the best compared to the other airlines, but ok it was the cheapest. On the return flight we had technical problems in CCS, and the flight was forced too do an extra stop in Antigua. We arrived LHR with a 10 hours delay...

In my opinion the decision of BA to pull out from this market is totally wrong.
The seats are replaced by other carriers like AF,LH,AZ...and BA is loosing the part of the cake, in specially for the high yielding transfer passengers from Northern South America to India, China and South Asia. This marketplace is increasing year by year. And I don´t think they are attractive with a routing BOG/CCS - MAD - LHR - DEL. The passengers will prefer a one airport connection via CDG or FRA.

If we want to here the rumours of BA leaving Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo would be all that's left.

Rio de Janeiro would also be left. But if EZE goes GIG would also go.

On the other hand, BA is very vigilant with GIG because VS announced that GIG is in its "wish list". If VS operates LHR-GIG, I'm sure BA would not withdraw from GIG.

BA could also operate a dedicated flight LHR-GRU and open a second route LHR-GIG-EZE [plus on the traffic GIG-EZE there is less competition if compared to GRU-EZE].

If I do the right math, the only direct link between London and South America would be BA/RG to Sao Paulo, right?

Arcano: RG flies daily LHR-GRU-GIG with the MD-11. In 2004 loads were 80-90%, and is one RG's most profitable international routes, especially on business and first. [3 x week RG extends the flight and operates CPH-LHR-GRU-GIG].

As such, RG is the only LatAm airline landing in the UK and Scandinavia.

DoorsToManual:

BA should be spending a lot in their crew to operate the GRU-EZE and GRU-GIG legs, correct? The crew is based in GRU only? How is the crew rotation on the EZE/GIG legs, and are they locals with BA crew taking over GRU-LHR?

Do you think BA will keep the 747 to GRU all-year around? Please email me the internal staff paper.

Rgs,

[Edited 2005-02-07 14:53:55]

25 Chiguire
: Bye, bye BA ! It's very sad to see them leaving. I had nice flights with them ! I consider the decision to leave CCS as a mistake ! Maybe wee see them

26 DoorsToManual
: Hi Guys I'll send you the email as as soon as I can, it's an attachment in PDF format. FlyCaledonian, Indeed, large strides have been made in cutting

27 Bogota
: My internal source at BA summarized BA´s policy and why the route was closed down. 1. Costs of staff (most of the crew based in BOG have been around

28 Hardiwv
: However, I check loads on the GRU flight regularly, and the flight always appears full in F and overbooked in all other cabins! I am also aware that B

29 Avianca
: also the cargoloads on all sectors from LHR to (GRU;GIG;EZE) , at least on the southbound flight. are very good booked. It is hard to get space on thi

30 Hardiwv
: Anybody has information how is the loadfactor on the northbound flight? ok for this legs the yield is very poor Cargo yields for the Northboud segment

31 DoorsToManual
: Hi Hardi Sorry, didn't mean to confuse you with the word 'base'. As far as I know, there is NO base at GRU/GIG. Simply the UK crew will nightstop at G

32 Avianca
: intresting to hear that. because in special Brazil is very well known in the market, with poor cargoloads on northbound flights. And it is very diffic

33 Hardiwv
: DoorsToManual: Tks for the info. Now I understand, the crew makes a nightstop in GRU and next day serves EZE or GIG. Very smart way of dealing with th

34 DoorsToManual
: Sorry me again! Well, I have no work today so..... Hardi, maybe I'm just quite bad with computers, but I can't email you the article through a.net bec

35 Hardiwv
: DoorsToManual: Tks for the interesting article. In the article they underline that the reason why BA is leaving BOG and CCS is based on low return ("l

36 Lima
: British Airways used to have Argentina based and also Brazilian based crews. Anyone knows what happened with these scheme?

37 AlitaliaMD11
: its the conection with Iberia thats stopping the Latin America flights. Iberia flies to a lot of Latin American destinations from MAD, and its easier

38 Summa767
: BA clearly has its strategy of focusing on premium passengers, but I am happy that the way is clear for Avianca to return to London non-stop. In the l

39 Hardiwv
: Whilst BA is shrinking its network, VS is expanding theirs. Indeed, and VS stated that GIG was in its wish-list, so maybe we could see VS landing in t

40 Bogota
: I know BA still have both Brazilian and Argentinian based crew, as well as Mexico based crew, and if they use the same scheme as they did in CCS-BOG t